(NNPA)—Russell Simmons hasn’t slept much since news broke in mid-October that users of his RushCard couldn’t access their own money and were locked out of their accounts, due to a computer glitch, leaving some unable to make rent payments, pay utility bills or buy groceries for their families.
“Technology glitches happen, but this was a tsunami,” said Simmons in an exclusive, hour-long interview with the NNPA News Wire.
Users began experiencing problems when Simmons’ company switched to a new transaction-processing provider, something that he said they’ve done successfully at least four times.
“We made the transfer of processes four separate times in the past and the next thing you know, I get a text message that we sent to our customers that we were down for two hours,” said Simmons, the iconic business magnate who founded Def Jam Records and the Phat Farm clothing line. “Our call center usually gets about 600 calls and now it’s [getting] 600,000 calls.”
Russell Simmons speaks out on RushCard glitch